


A Spy in the Courts of Love

by La Reine Noire (lareinenoire)



Category: 14th Century CE RPF, Legend of Good Women - Geoffrey Chaucer
Genre: Canonical Character Death, F/M, M/M, References to Underage Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-22
Updated: 2013-12-22
Packaged: 2018-01-05 15:22:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,169
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1095586
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lareinenoire/pseuds/La%20Reine%20Noire
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>And though thee lyke nat a lover be, / Spek wel of love.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Spy in the Courts of Love

**Author's Note:**

  * For [angevin2](https://archiveofourown.org/users/angevin2/gifts).



> So many thanks to my wonderful beta-readers. Any remaining errors, Chaucerian or otherwise, are my own. The events depicted here are in roughly chronological order, beginning early in 1386. Title is a melding of Anaïs Nin ( _A Spy in the House of Love _) and Andreas Capellanus ( _The Art of Courtly Love_ ). Section epigraphs and summary from Geoffrey Chaucer, _The Legend of Good Women_.__

The king and the queen were in residence at Eltham Palace with only a small gathering from the court. In the painted hall with its tall, tracery windows, the courtiers resembled nothing more than bright-hued butterflies. The queen had imported the Bohemian fashion of great horned headdresses, from which an array of coloured scarves fluttered.

 

The queen herself wore no such fripperies, though the gems in her crown glittered in the sunlight. Beside her the king shone in cloth-of-gold, England made manifest in all glory. If, that is, England wore the cheeky smile of a schoolboy at mischief.

 

"Master Chaucer," the queen said, "would you call yourself a love poet?"

 

Geoffrey glanced round the room uncomfortably. "I write as my muse bids me. Sometimes she bids me write of love."

 

Beside the queen, King Richard gave a snort of laughter. "Has she bid you to finish the _Romaunt of the Rose_ yet?"

 

"When she does so, Your Gr--Your Majesty--" He caught the slight inclination of the king's head in approval, "I will be sure to let you know."

 

He could hear the low murmur of laughter from the assembled courtiers and relaxed a little. That was before the queen cleared her throat. "You were cruel to the lady Criseyde, Master Chaucer, and though you begged pardon of ladies all, I fear that does not satisfy me."

 

Geoffrey sank to his knees. "Your Grace, I meant no harm by my _Troilus_. It was but a trifle, a silly poem, no insult to ladies, I assure you."

 

"Hm." The queen pursed her lips. "Methinks a penance will serve you well. Write the lady's part, Master Chaucer. Write to me of ladies who fall in love and how well they are served."

 

"A legendary of women," the king said, grinning at the queen. "Brilliant, Anne. Although, if I may add a penance of my own for the tardiness of the _Rose_. You're fond of praising yourself, Chaucer. Write my queen a legendary of women and start with Cleopatra."

 

Geoffrey's mouth dropped open even as the queen turned to her husband in shock. Before he could stop himself, however, he nodded. "Very well, Your Majesty. A legendary of women that opens with Cleopatra. If naught else, it will be memorable."

 

 

***

 

_But love had brought this man in swich a rage_

_And him so narwe bounden in his las_

_Al for the love of Cleopataras_

_That al the world he sette at no value._

(599-604)

 

"You asked him to start with Cleopatra?" Robin snorted. "In a _legendary_?"

 

The king took a sip of wine and leant back against the cushions piled at the prow of the royal barge. "Anne told me to be inventive." He hid a thoroughly un-royal smile behind the goblet. "You would have enjoyed his face."

 

"You were cruel to deprive me of it, then." Richard was cruel as only kings and troubadours' ladies could be. The crown sat easily on his curling hair, bright as golden angels or the sun on the Thames. "What did Chaucer do to offend the queen?"

 

"Troilus was something unpronounceable and German and ought to have listened to his lady."

 

"Well, there you have it." Four years Anne of Bohemia had been queen of England, and her English still failed her at times. Robin had to give her credit for trying, however; he'd made no headway with German in spite of pretty Mistress Launcekrona's tutelage. "Even though that lady had been unfaithful?"

 

Richard held up his hands. "Anne seems to think Criseyde had no choice and I am loth to argue with her. It is a foolish husband indeed who disagrees with his wife on the nature of women."

 

Robin bit his tongue. The royal marriage was atypical in many ways, not the least of which being that the king and queen were madly, disgustingly in love with one another. Which, in turn, made things somewhat awkward for the king's not-precisely-discarded lover. It wouldn't have surprised Robin one bit if Queen Anne knew of his entire history with Richard, but, search her face as he might, Robin found neither contempt nor jealousy.

 

"He begins with Cleopatra, and then what?" he finally asked, as the silence stretched and threatened. "With such an opening, who comes next? Messalina? Guinevere?"

 

"Whoever Master Chaucer chooses. No doubt he'll find something inventive." Richard set the empty goblet down and studied Robin. "Although I would happily read a legend of Guinevere _martyris_. Perhaps I should suggest it."

 

Robin did not _want_ to be jealous of a small, brown German girl. Surely that was beneath his dignity.

 

"Robin, is something the matter?" Richard was looking at him, head tilted to one side like a painted bird in the margins of a book. "Tell me."

 

It was a command--every word Richard spoke was a command, whether or not he meant it or even noticed. Robin was one of the few who could turn him down and even he chose his battles carefully. "I fear you couldn't understand it." At the narrowing of Richard's eyes, he added quickly, "You're not in love with the king of England."

 

Richard's lips twitched in a smile. "Who says I'm not? Do not kings love as other men do?" He frowned then, suddenly far away. "Arthur loved too well."

 

"And Lancelot too," Robin said, making the precarious crawl to Richard's side as the barge caught a sharp current. "Three martyrs to love, then. Not just Guinevere."

 

"Ay, but this is a legendary of ladies, Robin. Ladies abandoned by their lovers, no less." He traced a pattern on Robbie's cheek with one be-ringed hand. "No place for us there."

 

Robin grinned and nipped at Richard's fingers. "What, would I not make a beauteous queen of Egypt?"

 

"And am I to throw aside my kingdom for you as Antony did Rome?" Richard's eyes glinted with laughter though he carefully did not smile. "It did not end well for them."

 

"I thought that was the purpose of a legendary," Robin pointed out.

 

Richard's laughter rang out across the river, echoing against the pillars of London Bridge as they passed below. On the far side of the bridge, Robin could see shadows peering down as Londoners flocked to catch a glimpse of the king in the flesh. Five years had passed since Wat Tyler had led his men into London and burnt down the duke of Lancaster's palace; five years since Richard had met with the rebels in Smithfield and kept them there long enough to lose their heads for their trouble. Richard followed his gaze upward, his smile straining a little even as the cheers sounded from on high. If he saw the dark looks directed Robin's way, he said nothing of them. It was no small thing to be a king's favourite, even if it seemed that half the realm would greet his demise joyfully. The other half owed him favours, but even then, they would hardly mourn him.

 

Perhaps that was why Richard kept him close. What better illustration did he have, after all, of his own omnipotence?

 

"I'm minded," Richard said, his fingers curling in Robin's hair, "to make you duke of Ireland."

 

Robin closed his eyes and leant into the touch. "As it pleases you, Your Grace."

 

"A diplomatic answer. I trust you, Robin. You and Anne." _Anne again_ , Robin sighed inwardly. "It pleases me to advance those I trust--those I love."

 

It was the closest he was likely to get to a love declaration, but Robin set little store by such things. Leaning forward, he touched his lips to Richard's, be damned to any Londoner who saw. Cleopatra had died at the height of her power, pressing the asp to her heart and spitting on Rome. If England saw fit to turn on Robert de Vere, he would make an end worthy of a legendary.

 

***

 

_And now, ye wrecched jelous fadres oure,_

_We, that were whylom children youre,_

_We preyen yow, withouten more envye,_

_That in o grave yfere we moten lye,_

_Sin love hath brought us to this pitous ende_.

(900-904)

 

Mary still could not quite believe that her son was real. It had been fully four years, after all, since she had last quickened with child, when she was barely more than a child herself. _It was neither my doing nor Henry's_ , she reminded herself, _but his father's ambition brought us to this pass_.

 

That, too, was not entirely fair. Her sister had played her part, as had Duke Thomas of Gloucester--she had to fight to remember that it had all turned out for better rather than for worse. Thinking of Thomas recalled the tears she and Henry had both wept over little Edward, born and dead before his time.

 

A piercing shriek rose from the cradle. "Oh, is that so?" Mary asked no one in particular as she crossed the room to lift Harry, red-faced and squalling, into her arms. "You've your grandfather's voice, that's for certain."

 

Queen Anne had sent her the latest from Master Chaucer's legendary-- _to while away the time before they let you return to the world_ \--and as she settled down on the bed to nurse Harry, Mary turned back to the verses. She had already written to Anne to suggest other additions, and it was one of her suggestions that she now held in her hands. The tale of Thisbe, forbidden to wed and dead for her presumption.

 

"Perhaps," she told Harry, now determinedly absorbed in his midday meal, "I ought to have suggested Heloise. Your father might not have taken it very well." She was given to teasing Henry with that tale every now and again since she had, in another life it seemed, been intended for the cloister, if only that her sister and brother-by-marriage might help themselves to the Bohun inheritance.

 

 _I could have been happy in a nunnery, perhaps_. But she would not have Henry. "Nor you," she said aloud. Harry blinked up at her. His eyes grew darker every day, like his father's. _A lusty boy_ , the midwives had told her, laughing and chattering in Welsh amongst themselves. Mary had only blushed in response, not quite bold enough to add, _lusty like his father_.

 

Henry had obeyed the rules and kept away from Monmouth, but he'd added a gift of his own to Queen Anne's and, perhaps having already read Master Chaucer's poem, sent a lion made of soft yellow wool and stuffed with goosedown like a pillow. Mary picked it up and waved it in front of the baby's face till the yarn locks of the lion's mane danced becomingly. Harry reached out with one tiny, star-shaped hand and grasped the lion's tail.

 

"He'd better not try that with the cats here or he's likely to lose a finger."

 

Mary found herself looking at her husband, who was grinning like a schoolboy ducking lessons. "Henry, you're supposed to be at court!"

 

"Bother the court. I want to see my wife. And my son." He settled on the side of the bed, smelling of sweat and horse, and leant forward to kiss Mary. "I've missed you."

 

"And I you, my smelly husband," she retorted. Harry stared up at his father in bewilderment and wrinkled his nose. "See, your son agrees."

 

"He'll learn to love it. Harry of Lancaster, the greatest knight of them all." He raised the baby high over his head and Harry promptly spat up a glob of milk onto his forehead.

 

Mary stifled her giggles in her sleeve. "I could have warned you if you'd asked." She passed him one of Harry's discarded swaddling-clothes. "He does that often."

 

Henry dabbed at his forehead and Mary took the baby in her arms, hiding her laughter in the blankets. "Do you mock my indignity, wife?"

 

"Ay," she said, smoothing the dark hair away from his forehead. "Is it not my right and duty as your wife to protect you from overweening pride?"

 

Henry caught her hand and kissed it. "You say well." He gazed down at Harry's face as though only suddenly realising what he was. "He's so _small_."

 

"And thank heaven for it," Mary said without a pause. Henry's cheeks grew first pink and then red as he took her meaning. "He'll grow," she added with a smile. "And then he'll have a brother, or perhaps a sister." _And, God willing, cousins. Strong, healthy cousins for King Richard and England_. It had taken Mary four years to conceive after that first awful birth, after all. Queen Anne was young and anyone with eyes could see that she and the king were madly in love; it was only a matter of time.

 

But Henry was looking down at the coverlet now, even as Harry reached out toward him curiously. His thoughts had clearly wandered. "Henry, what's wrong?" It occurred to her that she might not have been what took him from court. "Has something happened?"

 

"My uncle of Woodstock has challenged the king," Henry said. "The Lord Chancellor is impeached and charged with stealing from the treasury, and a Commission has been appointed to rid the court of flatterers, or so they say. It is my uncle and your uncle of Arundel and the earl of Warwick. They call themselves the Appellants."

 

"And your father, who might have stopped them, is far away in Castile," Mary finished, her heart pounding. "What does the king say?"

 

"The king concedes, for now. He has agreed to the commission for a year." Henry shook his head. "In a year, it may be war."

 

Mary took his hand. His fingers were icy cold. "It may not come to that." The reassurance sounded hollow even to her. "Richard loves you well. Perhaps you can make him see reason."

 

"They want him to give up de Vere," said Henry, his voice low and hopeless. "He'll never do it and I'll never understand it."

 

Mary drew his head down onto her lap, beside Harry. Softly, she began to sing, " _Douce dame jolie, / Pour dieu ne pensés mie_..."

 

Though it was a sin to think so, Mary took great pride in her voice. Light and sweet, it had delighted the sisters in the convent and it did not take long for Henry, himself a musician of some skill, to discover and delight in it himself.

 

By the end of the first verse, Harry's eyes were closed and his rosebud mouth pursed as though kissing the air. Mary's other hand curled in and through Henry's hair as his breathing slowed and he too slept. He was snoring by the end of the song. Smiling ruefully, Mary leant back against the counterpane.

 

It was a peaceful night. God send them many more of the same.

 

***

 

_See ye nat alle how they been forsworn?_

_Wher see ye oon, that he ne hath laft his leef,_

_Or been unkinde, or doon hir som mischeef,_

_Or piled hir, or bosted of his dede?_

_Ye may as well it seen as ye may rede_.

(1259-1263)

 

"Uncle Geoffrey's here!" Joan's high-pitched shriek carried through all three floors of the house like the peal of church bells. "Mama, it's Uncle Geoffrey!"

 

"I heard you, sweetling," said Katherine. "I daresay the bishop could hear you in his palace. What did I tell you about shouting?"

 

"That ladies don't shout." Joan was in the doorway now, grinning widely at her mother. She had her father's eyes and her mother's face, but the bright yellow hair was pure Plantagenet. "Goodwife Brews told me I was a bastard, not a lady."

 

"When did she tell you this, Joan?" Katherine kept her voice level with great effort. "And what exactly did she say?"

 

Joan wrinkled her nose. "I wasn't truly listening. She smells."

 

Katherine grinned back. "She does, doesn't she? There's no need to listen to her, pet." She made a quick, silent prayer for forgiveness. _I will tell her when she's older_. Joan knew that she had a father, but unlike her brothers, had no great memory of him. He and Katherine had parted ways when Joan was still in swaddling-clothes and she knew no home but Lincoln.

 

It was better this way. She told herself that every morning and evening as she knelt before the prie-dieu in her chambers.

 

Joan had rushed down the stairs to greet her uncle and Katherine followed, smoothing the wrinkles from her brown wool skirts. "Dearest Geoffrey, why didn't you tell us you were coming?"

 

"You don't mind a surprise, do you, Katherine, every now and then?"

 

"That depends on the manner of the surprise," she corrected him over Joan's clamouring for a story. "Not yet, Joan. Let your uncle sit down first, for heaven's sake."

 

Geoffrey was ensconced in Katherine's favourite chair by the hearth in the solar by the time she retrieved a flagon of wine and two glasses. It was a red vintage from Gascony, one Geoffrey himself imported for her several times a year. _It reminds me of happier days_ , she had confessed to him once, unthinkingly, and earned herself a lifetime supply in those few words. She gave it to her guests and saved only one glass for herself, which she drank on midsummer's eve in remembrance of things long past repair.

 

She'd drank too much of it that night, sixteen long years ago. Surely she wouldn't have been so bold without the wine's headiness. It had been a bare three months since the death of the duchess Blanche of Lancaster and her husband had been grieving--Katherine was not fool enough to think he had felt anything for her until after the plague took the duchess. There had been a few stolen weeks afterward when she had found herself spending the afternoons by his side, watching the children in the gardens as the days grew chillier.

 

Even then, knowing he was to leave for the Aquitaine the following morning, she would not have done what she did but for the wine. Something in its lushness reminded her that he was riding to war, that she might never see him again. And so she'd kissed him in the shadows of the rose arbour, thinking to leave with no more than a bittersweet memory.

 

Instead, he'd returned the next year and there had been no question in her heart. Just as there was no question now that if she were to see him again, her answer was, and always would be, yes.

 

"I read your Dido, Geoffrey," Katherine told him after Joan had darted off to fetch her brother. Try as she could, she found herself on the verge of laughter. "You were uncharitable, my dear."

 

He took her hand and kissed it. "Any man who invokes the divine may be a liar. Aeneas was a man, for all that his mother was a goddess. And he was a fool to leave his lady. That is the moral of a legendary of women, is it not?"

 

"You of all people know it isn't that simple." How often had she made this argument to herself? "Aeneas had a destiny. Without him, there would be no Rome; without Rome, surely there would have been no England."

 

"You forget Brutus of Troy."

 

"Weren't you the one who called him, and I believe I recall it exactly, 'the wine-soaked fancy of a drunken Welsh knave'?"

 

Geoffrey wagged one finger at her. "You mustn't hold me accountable for the things I say, Katherine. And besides, Castile is hardly Rome, and impressive as your duke may be, the son of Venus I assure you he is not."

 

"Who else will you include?" she asked, seizing on the chance to change the topic, and Geoffrey obliged, much to her relief. The duke was in Castile even now, fighting for the crown he'd married, the crown for which he'd abandoned Katherine. "Have you decided yet?"

 

"Any legendary worth the name must have Lucretia. What think you of Philomel?"

 

Katherine blinked. "With or without the pies?" she asked after a moment's consideration.

 

"I confess, I know not," Geoffrey said with a grin. "One cannot argue that she had no cause."

 

"No, indeed, but it is difficult to imagine a legendary that approves of serving one's nephews and nieces in a pie to their father."

 

"What of Medea? There are no pies and still ample cause."

 

"You are in a murderous mood, Geoffrey."

 

"I've been writing about Theseus." He looked so thunderous that Katherine burst out laughing. "What? He's worse than I'd remembered! The man couldn't meet a lady without lying to her."

 

"Alas, poor Geoffrey, that is the way of men. Surely you knew that from the _Roman de la Rose_ if nothing else." French still tripped prettily off Katherine's tongue, though she used it very little in Lincoln these days. "And besides, it was meant to be a penance. To force you to think of ladies when you write of love."

 

"It's working," said Geoffrey mournfully. "I never want to write about love again."

 

***

 

_Why lyked me thy youthe and thy fairnesse_

_And of thy tonge the infinit graciousnesse?_

_O, haddest thou in thy conquest deed y-be,_

_Ful mikel untrouthe had ther dyed with thee!_

(1674-1677)

 

"There are scorned women aplenty in this court, if Master Chaucer had the wit to ask any of them." The Duchess of Ireland rolled her eyes and took a generous gulp of hippocras. "I could tell him tales that would make Ovid turn in his grave."

 

"Philippa, really," said the queen, "he's doing his best. For a man."

 

"But, Anne, did you _see_ what he did to Medea?" She sighed. "Pining and mewling like the rest of them. Did she not get her revenge? I seem to recall she did."

 

"Ay," said Anne after a moment's pause, "she did."

 

Philippa glanced at her and found the queen staring into the hearth as though into a deep well, one hand fluttering just above her belly.

 

"Oh, Anne, forgive me," Philippa cried, jumping to her feet. "I meant nothing by it, I promise--"

 

"Of course not." The familiar smile was back, strained and sad as it was. Philippa cursed herself for having forgotten--how could she have forgotten? "I always forgive you, dearest Philippa."

 

"You are too good, my lady." She did not speak aloud what she wanted to say. _King Richard does not deserve you when he dallies with my husband behind your back_. "But I do think Master Chaucer did Medea a disservice."

 

"Perhaps he did. But perhaps it was a mercy instead," said Anne, her eyes once again far away, "and he did not wish to upset me with talk of dead babes."

 

Of course. It made perfect sense and Philippa could feel the blush rising in her cheeks. She stabbed at the half-formed handkerchief in her lap and accidentally pricked her thumb. Furiously, she pressed it to her mouth and bit back her tears as best she could. When Anne reached over and took her other hand, however, she could no more stanch her tears as fail to breathe. The queen held her silently as she sobbed.

 

"I hate him so much," she whispered, the words muffled against the deep green velvet of Anne's gown. "He's made a fool of me in front of all the realm."

 

There was no need to specify who _he_ was. All the world knew that her husband had abandoned her. Anne was murmuring something but Philippa couldn't hear it. All she could hear was the echo of Robert laughing with the king, and in her mind's eye she could see his smile dripping scorn as his eyes met hers across the great hall. It could have been one of a thousand banquets where he'd humiliated her thus. In the early years of their marriage, Philippa had tried to make him jealous, once flirting outrageously with Cousin Henry during a New Year's feast and reducing his wife Mary to tears. All she'd earned for her trouble was further embarrassment and dismay at having upset one of the sweetest ladies at court.

 

Robert, curse him, had suffered no such indignities. The king indulged him as he would a favoured pet, and Robert gave no thought to what might happen if that favour were to be revoked. He made enemies as easily as Master Chaucer made rhymes. Someday, Philippa told herself, he would reap what he had sown. Until then, however, the punishment was apparently hers.

 

Anne had suddenly grown very still, and Philippa disentangled herself as best she could before turning toward the doorway. The young woman paused there was as small as Anne with hair black as crow's wings and dark, snapping eyes. What was her rank in Bohemia? _Landgravine_? Nothing compared to a duchess and the granddaughter of kings. Philippa straightened her back, running nose and all, and glared at Agnes de Launcekrona, the woman for whom it was said Robert had forsaken her.

 

"Agneta." Queen Anne's poise did not desert her and she kept Philippa's hand firmly held in hers. "Your timing is poor."

 

The lady of the bedchamber stammered something in German, to which the queen snapped a response. Philippa couldn't help but think that a German reprimand sounded far harsher than it did in English. Had it been any other woman, she might have pitied her for having awakened the unaccustomed wrath of the queen of England.

 

"You needn't defend me, Anne," said Philippa, rising to her feet. "She'll learn soon enough what _love_ means to dear Robert. And I'll be damned before I kneel to her." With one last sniff, she prepared to leave the room with her dignity intact.

 

"That's enough!" The whipcrack of Queen Anne's command caught Philippa entirely by surprise and she nearly tripped on the edge of the Turkey rug. Agnes de Launcekrona caught her arm to steady her and Philippa recoiled as if scalded. "For shame, ladies. Would you battle one another for the favours of Robert de Vere?"

 

"If that is what you wish," she continued, fixing first Philippa and then her countrywoman with quelling glances, "then I shall declare a trial by combat and fight for him you shall, before the entire court. But if you wish to spare yourselves that indignity, I suggest you direct your anger at the one who most deserves it."

 

Philippa couldn't look at the other woman, not yet. They were surprisingly alike in appearance, both dark-haired and striking, just like Robert himself. _Not that it matters. We lack something rather more obvious_. She wondered if Agnes knew. Perhaps Robert had pretended with her as he hadn't bothered with the bride his parents had thrust upon him as a child. Try as she might, Philippa had never managed to convince him that their betrothal wasn't her fault.

 

Agnes de Launcekrona sank into a curtsey. "My lady of Ireland," she murmured. "Your Grace. I meant no harm."

 

"He can be very charming when he chooses," Philippa heard herself say, her voice as cold as her mother's had been when critiquing her father, "but I pray you do not believe a word he says if you value your heart and your honesty. He loves no one better than himself."

 

"If you will have him, Agneta," Queen Anne said, the unexpected gentleness in her voice somehow worse than her previous anger, "you cannot stay at court. You know that."

 

The lady nodded. "I will have him, my dearest lady. The choice was mine too, and I chose to marry him." She cast a quick, hunted look at Philippa before raising Anne's hand to her lips. "I think you understand."

 

For a moment, Anne's expression trembled, but she caught herself. "I wish you good fortune, but I cannot give you my blessing. Not for this."

 

When the door closed behind her disgraced lady-in-waiting, Anne turned away from Philippa. "Oh, Robin. Oh, _Richard_ ," Philippa heard her whisper to the air, "you have so very much to answer for."

 

***

 

_Al hadde folkes hertes been of stones,_

_It mighte have maked hem upon hir rewe,_

_Hir herte was so wyfly and so trewe_.

(1841-1843)

 

Anne's dreams were full of blood and when she awakened the world was a haze of red. Above her swam the great canopy of the royal bed, its velvets full of shadows. She could hear a man's voice beside her, hoarse and desperate, and only belatedly did she recognise it.

 

"Richard?" The name was hardly a word at all, the barest whisper of breath. How long had it been? The last she recalled was having apologised to Isolda for her sharp words that morning, and seeing her lady-in-waiting burst into hysterical tears. Then the world had dissolved into pain and blood and darkness.

 

"Let her live, I beg you. The king of England begs you, God, please, _please_ don't take her from me. I'll do anything. I'll never think of Robin again. I'll banish all of them; I'll build a hundred, nay, a thousand churches. I'll go to Jerusalem on my knees, just let her live."

 

It took all her strength, but she stretched out her hand to touch his. When he looked up at her it was with the most awful hope in his eyes. "Anne? Sweetheart?"

"Sire, you must come away. The contagion--"

 

"Hang the contagion! I am the king of England." His hands were crushing hers. "She's burning, Doctor."

 

"The fever, sire. Truly, you must--"

 

"I won't leave her." He raised Anne's hand to his lips and the touch singed as though she'd touched a candleflame. "And you can't leave me, Anne."

 

 _I don't want to leave you_. She tried to form the words but it was as though her tongue had turned to lead. There was too much to say and she was so tired. Her eyelids sank down once again and she could hear Richard’s voice fading into the darkness.

 

She awakened again in the dead of night, although in her chambers the candles burned still. Somewhere, in the darkness, Richard was there. She could hear his voice, or what she thought was his voice. He was arguing, pleading, with God or with the physician, she knew not.

 

She recalled when she first set eyes on him and thought him the most beautiful man alive. _He still is, for all the good it does_. She still dreamt of a little boy with eyes grey as the sea and a slightly crooked smile who could make his father laugh again.

 

She could not leave him. _But what if I have no choice?_ She could feel the tears pricking at her eyes. So many tears she'd shed in these awful days. He needed her, now more than ever, and she was leaving him as everyone else had before her--his father and grandfather, brother and mother, and Robin, dead these two years past in a boar hunt in Louvain. _Oh, Richard, I'm so very sorry. Forgive me, my dearest lord, I beg you_.

 

Of course, Robin had been lost to Richard years before that. She still remembered coaxing him from his bed after Robin fled the realm, never to return. _They wish to see me grovel. I won't let them, Anne. I won't forgive them_. She had known better than to protest at the time, but she had watched that memory grow sharp and corrosive like iron left to rust. She had preserved the fragile remnants of amity between him and his uncle of Gloucester, but they would not last beyond her death; that much she knew all too well. He had his allies, but they did not love him as Robin had, except perhaps for Richard's poor quiet cousin Rutland.

 

But someone else was looming over her know. Her chaplain, murmuring to her in soothing tones in the one language that didn't exhaust her. _It's over. They've given up_. Richard was still speaking, her name punctuating each sentence, but she could no longer understand him.

 

Just barely, she felt the chill of the holy water on her forehead---her skin still burned too hot for it to matter.

 

"Anne!" She saw him, struggling against the physicians' grip. "Anne, I'm here. I won't leave you, I won't leave you."

 

She could no longer see the physicians, only Richard as he had been when first she met him, great and golden and beautiful as an archangel. She smiled and held out her hand to him. _No, my love, you never will_.

 

***

 

Queen Anne's body lay in state for nearly two months. Geoffrey had paid his respects soon after she died, setting a fair-copy of the final, unfinished book of Hypermenstra on the floor beside the great stone slab in the chapel at Shene. It was the only portion of the legendary that she had not yet read. He'd intended to finish it, and if the queen had ever asked him, he surely would have done it.

 

But it seemed Queen Anne had more important concerns, as they all had.

 

The great funeral service was held at Westminster Abbey, but Geoffrey was not among those invited. He heard later of the altercation between the king and the earl of Arundel and wondered how soon there would be blood in the streets as well as on the flagstones of Westminster. Three great ladies struck down this summer on both sides of the quarrel, for the duke of Lancaster and his son Henry of Derby had both lost their wives.

 

The former was perhaps less tragedy than inconvenience for John of Gaunt, but Geoffrey recalled the Countess of Derby's sweet face and murmured a quiet prayer for her soul as well as Queen Anne's. He remembered too the awful hope that flashed across Katherine's face when he told her of the death of the Infanta Constanza. What it meant, he could not foretell, but little Joan now spoke freely of her lord father the duke of Lancaster. Perhaps there would be one love story that ended in joy rather than sorrow, for a time.

 

The king, it was said, had commissioned a magnificent tomb for his queen, one in which he intended to take his place when the time came. One look at Richard's hollow eyes and the grief etched upon his face suggested that the king was dead already, a mere husk animated only by England and the royal will.

 

Nay, there was no place for love here, at least not for love as he had written it. There was a holy woman in Norwich whom Katherine had mentioned who spoke of God's love above all other things, that all should be well in time. He wondered if King Richard would take the word of an anchorite that he was not forsaken, or if the grief had sunk its claws too deeply for that.

 

Geoffrey stood now in the great nave of Westminster Abbey, near the stone slab under which the queen would rest until her effigy was complete.

 

"Should she be of stone or of brass, do you think, Master Chaucer?" He did not recognise the king's voice at first, hoarse from weeping and exhaustion. "I don't suppose it truly matters when the essence is gone."

 

"Your majesty," Geoffrey said, dropping to one knee. "I am so sorry."

 

For a moment, the king just looked at him. Then, quite to Geoffrey's surprise, he let out a low bark of laughter. "What, no other words, Master Chaucer? I seem to recall you wrote an entire poem when the first duchess of Lancaster died."

 

"Some griefs, your majesty, cannot be put into words." He looked up just as the king's lower lip began to tremble. He covered his mouth and turned aside, motioning for Geoffrey to rise. Geoffrey reached out without thinking and placed one hand on the king's shoulder. "There is no shame in it, but you do not truly believe that your lady would doom you to waste away for love of her?"

 

"No," the king said, turning to meet Geoffrey's gaze. His eyes were vair-grey, the lashes gold and curling and pretty as any lady's. "She would tell me I was being foolish. She would tell me that she hated all the fuss and pomp and that I should be...happy. She could never understand that she _was_ my happiness."

 

Geoffrey had to blink away stray tears of his own, partly furious at himself for such silly sentiment. When the king turned back to the unfinished tomb, Geoffrey retreated several steps, intending to leave him in peace.

 

"Master Chaucer, did you ever finish that legendary? The one Anne asked you write."

 

Geoffrey reddened. "Nay, your majesty. I was halfway through the ninth book when Her Grace..."

 

The king nodded, seeming lost in thoughts for a moment. "Then leave it as it stands, sir. My queen was robbed of her life too soon. Perhaps it is fitting that the poem you wrote at her command remain unfinished."

 

Geoffrey bowed. "As you wish, sire."

 

There was no place for legends of love in this court. Not any longer.

**Author's Note:**

> This story presupposes several things, most notably that Geoffrey Chaucer wrote _The Legend of Good Women_ on direct orders (of some variety) from Queen Anne, wife to King Richard II, at some point between 1386 and 1394, and that the main reason the work remains unfinished is Anne's unexpected death on 7 June 1394. The poem itself is probably not so obviously autobiographical but it's more fun this way.
> 
>  _Part 1 – Cleopatra (1386)_  
>  Robert de Vere was one of Richard II's favourites and rumoured to have been his lover (admittedly, Thomas Walsingham, the chronicler who reports this rumour, had an axe to grind, so it must be taken with some scepticism). He succeeded his father as earl of Oxford in 1371 and was indeed named duke of Ireland by King Richard II in 1386, a completely new title that earned him the enmity of much of the existing aristocracy.
> 
>  _Part 2 – Thisbe (1386)_  
>  Mary de Bohun and her elder sister Eleanor were joint heiresses to the massive fortune of Humphrey de Bohun, earl of Hereford. In 1376, when Eleanor was about ten years old, she was married to Thomas of Woodstock, youngest son of Edward III. Mary accompanied them to Pleshey Castle, where she was strongly encouraged to join a convent (at which point the entirety of the Bohun inheritance would devolve onto Eleanor). Woodstock's elder brother John of Gaunt, however, decided he wanted half of that inheritance for his son Henry and may have gone so far as to kidnap Mary from a convent. The two were married early in 1381. Although Gaunt had not intended for the marriage to be consummated until Henry and Mary were older, Mary ended up pregnant at age thirteen and their first child died in infancy. In September 1386, another son Henry (later Henry V) was born at Monmouth Castle in the Welsh Marches.
> 
> In November 1386, three Lords Appellant, the duke of Gloucester and the earls of Arundel and Warwick, demanded certain concessions from Richard II, such as the removal of his Lord Chancellor Michael de la Pole, and the institution of a fourteen-man commission to oversee the daily running of the kingdom. Richard complied on the condition that the commission's term be limited to one year.
> 
> The song Mary sings was composed by Guillaume de Machaut (c. 1300-1377). Lyrics can be found here.
> 
>  _Part 3 – Dido (1387)_  
>  Katherine de Roet was Geoffrey Chaucer's sister-in-law before her marriage to Sir Hugh Swynford in 1366. She entered the household of Blanche, duchess of Lancaster around the same time, where she remained even after Blanche's death in 1369. At some point early in the 1370s, she began an affair with John of Gaunt, duke of Lancaster that continued after his second marriage to Constance of Castile (September 1371) and produced four children between 1373 and 1379 (Joan Beaufort is the youngest). In 1381, following the Peasant's Revolt, Gaunt publicly renounced Katherine (presumably for political reasons) and reconciled with Constance. Katherine retired to the city of Lincoln, though as her Beaufort children grew older they remained in contact with the court and with their father. In 1386, Gaunt travelled to Castile to press his claim to the throne through his wife; he did not return until 1389, after the Appellants' Crisis had passed.
> 
>  _Part 4 – Hypsipyle & Medea (1387)_  
> Philippa de Coucy's mother, Isabella, was the eldest daughter of King Edward III and her father was Enguerrand de Coucy, a prominent French nobleman. She was married to Robert de Vere in 1376. By all reports it was an unhappy marriage, and Robert sued for a divorce to Pope Urban VI in 1387, ostensibly to marry a lady-in-waiting of Queen Anne's named Agnes de Launcekrona. It was an unpopular decision, one that even de Vere's mother disapproved of, and Philippa retained her titles of duchess of Ireland and countess of Oxford even after the divorce was granted.
> 
>  _Part 5 – Lucrece (1394, flashbacks to 1388)_  
>  Anne of Bohemia died unexpectedly at Shene Manor on 7 June 1394, almost certainly from the bubonic plague. The story of her apologising to one of her ladies-in-waiting for being cross that morning comes from a contemporary letter (see also [this heartbreaking fic](http://archiveofourown.org/works/931196)).
> 
>  _Epilogue – 1394_  
>  There are actually nine books in _The Legend of Good Women_ (Ariadne, Philomela, and Phyllis are complete; Hypermenstra is incomplete), but I decided to ~~cheat~~ close at the point at which Chaucer most likely stopped working on the poem. There is a later version of the prologue where all the specific references to Anne are excised, but no additional books. The anchorite Chaucer mentions is Julian of Norwich, who was a contemporary of his but we have no specific evidence that they ever encountered one another.


End file.
